Previous Next

Welcome to the Environmental turbulence analysis littera Lab!

The Et al. lab focuses on understanding the role of fluid mechanics in environmental processes. We are particularly interested in turbulent transport between buildings, forest, costal vegetation, and particle/droplet laden flows. We employ and further develop experimental techniques to study turbulent flows in these complex geometries.

Et al. stands for Environmental turbulence analysis littera, which means the study of the effects of turbulence on environmental flows with careful and detailed experimentations and analysis to advance our design capabilities in engineering. The abbreviation et al. means and others and is often used to cite collaborative work in scientific journals. (Fun fact: do you know that the most cited “scientist” on Google Scholar is et al.?) The adoption of this name reflects our philosophy that science is a collaborative endeavor and benefits from different perspectives, viewing angles and inclusion.

Physics of Turbulence

Turbulence is the most important unsolved problem of classical physics - Richard Feynman

Experimental Fluid Mechanics

Environmental Fluid Systems

Principal Investigator

Avatar

Chris CK Lai

Assistant Professor

Experimental Fluid Mechanics, Turbulent Mixing and Transport, Turbulence Theory and Modeling

PhD Students

Avatar

Muhammad Ahmad Mustafa

PhD Student (Fall ‘20 - Present); MSc Student, Fulbright Scholar (Spring ‘20)

Avatar

Ishtiaqul Islam

PhD Student (Fall ‘21 - Present)

Avatar

Zachary Byrd

PhD Student (Fall ‘21 - Present); Undergrad Researcher (Spring ‘20)

Experimental Fluid Mechanics, Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Teaching/Professorship

Avatar

Wei-Cheng Hung

PhD Student (Fall ‘22 - Present)

Master Students

Avatar

Alex Zimmer

MSc Student (Fall ‘22 - Present); Undergrad Researcher (Spring ‘21 - Spring ‘22); PURA awardee (Fall ‘21)

Projects

*
All Multiphase flow Hyporheic mixing Mixing efficiency Density Stratification

Multibody turbulent flow

Production of turbulence in an array of spheres with relative motions– air-water flows.

Stratified turbulence

Mixing and scale interactions in stratified turbulence– improving turbulence models and estimates of oceanic mixing efficiency.

Turbulent flow in porous media

Turbulent-laminar flow transitions in porous media– solute transport in river and groundwater.

Featured Publications

Chris CK Lai, John J Charonko, Katherine Prestridge
March 2018 Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 843: 382-418
A Kármán–Howarth–Monin equation for variable-density turbulence

A Kármán–Howarth–Monin equation for variable-density turbulence

We present a generalisation of the Kármán–Howarth–Monin (K–H–M) equation to include variable-density (VD) effects. The derived equation (i) reduces to the original K–H–M equation when density is a constant and (ii) leads to a VD analogue of the 4/5-law with the same value of constant (=4/5) appearing as the prefactor of the dissipation rate.

DOI
See all publications

Recent Publications

Beyond Taylor's hypothesis: a novel volumetric reconstruction of velocity and density fields for variable‑density and shear flows

This work presents a novel numerical procedure for reconstructing volumetric density and velocity fields from planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) and stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) data.
Dominique Fratantonio, Chris CK Lai, John Charonko, Kathy Prestridge
DOI
Beyond Taylor's hypothesis: a novel volumetric reconstruction of velocity and density fields for variable‑density and shear flows

Turbulence statistics in a negatively buoyant multiphase plume

In this paper we report an experimental study characterizing the turbulence inside a heavy particle plume descending under gravity within a salt–water solution.
Ankur D Bordoloi, Chris CK Lai, Laura Clark, Gerardo V Carrillo, Evan Variano
DOI
Turbulence statistics in a negatively buoyant multiphase plume

Mean velocity, spreading and entrainment characteristics of weak bubble plumes in unstratified and stationary water

In this paper we present an experimental and theoretical study of weak bubble plumes in unstratified and stationary water. We define a weak bubble plume as one that spreads slower than the linear rate of a classic plume.
Binbin Wang, Chris CK Lai, Scott A Socolofsky
DOI

The turbulent kinetic energy budget in a bubble plume

We present the turbulent kinetic energy (t.k.e.) budget of a dilute bubble plume in its asymptotic state. The budget is derived from an experimental dataset of bubble plumes formed inside an unstratified water tank.
Chris CK Lai, Scott A Socolofsky
DOI

Budgets of turbulent kinetic energy, Reynolds stresses, and dissipation in a turbulent round jet discharged into a stagnant ambient

This paper presents a set of stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) measurements of a turbulent round water jet (jet exit Reynolds number $Re=2679$ and turbulent Reynolds number $Re_{T}=113$) discharged into an initially stationary ambient.
Chris CK Lai, Scott A Socolofsky
DOI
See all publications

Teaching

CEE 6261. Environmental Fluid Mechanics. 3 Credit Hours.

Spring 2023 | Spring 2022 | Spring 2021 | Spring 2020 Jan 2023 – May 2023
Dynamics, mixing, and contaminant transport in surface water bodies, including lakes, rivers, estuaries, and coastal waters. Introduction to numerical models. Prediction of mixing zones.

CEE 4200. Hydraulic Engineering. 3 Credit Hours.

Spring 2023 Jan 2023 – May 2023
Applications of fluid mechanics to engineering and natural systems including fluid drag, open channel flow, turbomachinery, and environmental hydraulics; laboratory experiments; computational hydraulics.

CEE 6281. Open Channel Hydraulics. 3 Credit Hours.

Fall 2022 | Fall 2021 | Fall 2020 Aug 2022 – Dec 2022
Flow of liquids with free surfaces in artificial and natural channels. Analysis of flow resistance. Computation of gradually varied flow profiles. Flow through transitions, spillways, bridges, culverts. Analysis of unsteady flow.

Lab News

Awarded USGS 104b grant (FY 2022) on studying the hydraulic transients in water distribution systems

Our project Hydraulic transients in water distribution systems – the role of unsteady friction and groundwater contamination has been awarded a 1-year research grant from U.S. Department of the Interior Water Resources Research Act Program.
Jul 22, 2022 2 min read Grant
Awarded USGS 104b grant (FY 2022) on studying the hydraulic transients in water distribution systems

Congrats Alex Zimmer for receiving the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher award in the Spring Symposium

Congratulate Alex for winning the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher award in the Spring 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium (UROP Symposium). This is a great accomplishment! Check out the UROP Symposium website to learn more
May 31, 2022 1 min read Award
Congrats Alex Zimmer for receiving the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher award in the Spring Symposium

Awarded NSF grant for studying the melting of glacier ice

Our project Revising Models of the Glacier-ocean Boundary Layer with Novel Laboratory Experiments has been recently awarded a 4-year research grant from NSF Office of Polar Programs (OPP). This is a collaboration with Dr.
Apr 22, 2022 1 min read Grant
Awarded NSF grant for studying the melting of glacier ice

Alex Zimmer Awarded President's Undergraduate Research Award for Fall 2021!

Congratulations to Alex for winning the first PURA in Et al. lab to fund his research over this fall.
Aug 8, 2021 1 min read Award

Upcoming Seminar at Johns Hopkins Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics

Tune in to the virtual seminar https://wse.zoom.us/j/93762992307 this Friday (Feb. 26, 2021) 3 pm EST. Title: “Pseudo-Volumetric Reconstruction of Velocity and Density Fields from 2D Data & Energy Cascade in Multiphase Flows”
Feb 23, 2021 2 min read Talk
See all posts

 
 
 
 
 

Et al. lab starts

School of Civil and Environmental Enginnering at Georgia Tech

Nov 2019 – Present

Word Cloud

Bubble plumes Bubble size distribution data interpolation Delta functions Dense jets Density Stratification Desalination Dissipation Energy budgets energy cascade Entrainment hypothesis Jet integral models Lagrangian Particle Tracking Large-eddy simulation Mixing and transport Multiphase flow Negative buoyant jets Slip velocity Turbulent mixing Two-way coupling

Contact

  • chrislck@gatech.edu
  • Mason Building, 790 Atlantic Dr, Atlanta, GA 30332
  • Chris Lai’s office is at Mason 2223